


Living Things

by Bagheera



Category: Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who: Scream of the Shalka
Genre: Backstory, Ghosts, M/M, Time War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-23
Updated: 2013-08-23
Packaged: 2017-12-24 09:57:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/938589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bagheera/pseuds/Bagheera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story of how the Doctor came to live with the Master.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Limbo

**Author's Note:**

> Betaed by x_los.

PART I: Limbo

The Doctor returned to the TARDIS from Gallifrey like a beaten dog. He dragged himself into a room that was far from his old one and barren. There he curled up on the bed and closed his eyes as if that alone could silence his newborn mind. This new body was tall, angular and reed thin, with sharp elbows and bony knees. Even the soft mattress the TARDIS had offered him on his new bed couldn't make him comfortable. He felt hollowed out, all skin and bones and sinews, but no blood in his hearts, no soul in the centre of his being. It would pass, it always passed, but he was tired.

They had been lenient in their punishment. No forced regeneration, no exile, no death by vaporization chamber for him. Instead they had punished him like a troublesome youth. They'd made him clean up his own mess. He had pleaded with the High Council to spare her, to make him pay for his mistake instead. The Doctor had known that this time, the Time Lords were right to accuse him of meddling. He had saved her life when he shouldn't have. She was a living paradox, a dead girl walking… no longer walking, now. He had taken her back to the place where she should have died. She'd been so brave, telling him to leave her, to save himself. He hadn't. He'd watched the hope that he would defy the Time Lords and save her a second flicker and die in her eyes, had accepted the bitter hint of betrayal in her gaze. He'd cried and screamed and burned with her, but it wasn't enough to kill a Time Lord permanently. The Doctor had regenerated among charred, twisted human bodies; their blackened limbs the first sight of his new life, the stench of burned flesh the first thing to overwhelm his senses. The Celestial Intervention Agency's operative had shown up to take him back to Gallifrey just in time to stop him from doing himself some injury.

But after that, the Time Lords had simply let him go. They'd given him back his TARDIS and let him go. It seemed unreal, but this was it. No more punishment, no more horrors. The knowledge that he was free, and that life had to go on was what the Doctor clung to as he tried to fight the images of dead bodies etched into his mind.

The TARDIS had anxiously awaited his return from Gallifrey. It must have frightened her to be called back home and forced to stay behind, helpless as a harpooned whale on the deck of a whaling boat while the Time Lords took away her master. As soon as the Doctor had returned, she had jumped away into the Vortex, fleeing Gallifrey. Such initiative was unusual for a time capsule, even one as wilful as his TARDIS. The Doctor could feel her reaching out to him, the curious tendrils of her gentle mind stroking and prodding him, and reacted more harshly than he should have, pushing her away and withdrawing unto himself like a mimosa. Hurt and rejected, the TARDIS pulled away, her concentrated mind dissolving once more into a vague presence, a foggy ghost inside a hardly living machine.

*

He woke, nauseous and panting, from a series of nightmares so intense that he had to touch his bare arms to reassure himself that his skin was still soft and alive, and not black and crumbling. Stumbling, the Doctor found his way to a bathroom, where washed his face with cold water to dispel the lingering terrors. He avoided the mirror, caught only a glimpse of a pale, gaunt face with reddened eyes and hair like ash and coal.

He discarded the robe he had been given on Gallifrey. The velvet and silk of his previous costume had all been devoured by the fire. Naked, the Doctor wandered into the wardrobe room. Wandering around naked in the TARDIS wasn't something he made a habit of, in fact he disliked even taking off his chosen outfits when it was necessary to shower or go to bed. Regeneration was a special time, though. Most Time Lords preferred to control what body they regenerated into, but the Doctor hated making that choice. How could his new personality ever be happy with an appearance chosen by the old one? If he wanted to make any progress in life at all, he had to open himself to change and chance. Of course it was by no means a comfortable way of regenerating. It left him raw and defenceless, far more exposed than he liked. But he usually loved the other part of becoming himself, where he discovered himself while selecting a new outfit. There was always something in the wardrobe that called out to him, and gave him that lovely little moment of oh, so that's who I am this time.

However, the manic energy of that moment failed to overcome him this time. All the colours and styles only made him listless. Too colourful, too whimsical, too bland, too burdened with memories, too adventurous - no ensemble pleased him. He trawled his mind and memories for some new inspiration, some impulse or idea for a new set of clothes, but came up like empty-handed pearl diver, blue lipped and still nauseous. Huffing in disgust, the Doctor grabbed a tattered tartan dressing gown someone had left lying on a pile of rags and put it on. It was a bit short, reaching only halfway down his lower arms and just barely covered his knees. Obviously this wouldn't do as a permanent costume, but he was tired again. It was absurd, but in spite of his nightmares, he thirsted for sleep.

His trip to the wardrobe was all he did for a long time. If he left his barren quarters at all, he moved through the TARDIS quietly, with hunched shoulders and a shuttered mind, feeling dizzy and faint. She offered him soothing rooms, libraries, the winter garden, the attic where dust motes permanently floated in golden afternoon sunlight, but these attempts at consoling him only succeeded in driving him back to his bed.

Each time the Doctor fell asleep easily and deeply, and dreams arose that where startlingly intense and consistent. It seemed as if his subconscious was dragging up resources of horror within him that he hadn't even known he possessed. In his dreams the Doctor experienced an overpowering fear of death that in his waking hours he had never quite understood. He started to think that perhaps something was wrong with him that he experienced this fear of death as alien, as something he could only give in to while he was unconscious. He almost hungered for the hyperreality of his nightmares. Part of him wanted it all, the fear, the pain, the undoing, the nothingness at the edges of what could be grasped.

After a while a creeping sense of unease came over him, because reality started to pale in comparison with nightmares that began to feel more and more like memories. And then there were dreams that recurred persistently, as if his subconscious was laying out a path for him to walk.  
Sometimes he dreamt of an iron forest, with trees like nails and railway spikes. The ground was covered in crunching gravel, bits of coral that looked like ground bone. The wind that howled in the forest wasn't moving air, but the roar and song, the constant scream of the Vortex. In that forest he always met another person. The first few times, the figure remained a blurring, strangely diluted shadow, something he only saw out of the corner of his eyes, but then one night it was quite solid, turning around to show its face.

"You," the Doctor said. "Here to function as a symbol of my guilt, no doubt. Predictable. Dreary."

The Master didn't speak. He circled the Doctor, seemingly passing right through the iron trees in his path. It was hard to tell where he ended and where the forest began.

The Doctor crossed his arms. He knew without looking that he was naked and colourless, a shadow in a dream, even less solid than the Master. "I don't blame myself for your death. That was entirely your own fault. Repeatedly, I might add. I didn't fail you or forsake you – you weren't my responsibility in the first place."

As he moved, the Master changed faces, from regeneration to regeneration. His eyes changed colour, blue, black, feline amber and poisonous green and finally turned as blazingly white as the Eye of Harmony. He spoke softly, condemning both of them without anger. "It's slow and painful, and in the end there is nothing, neither death nor life. We disintegrate," he said, and the Doctor woke breathless and bathed in sweat.

After that, the situation started to escalate. At one time he was perfectly sure he was dreaming: he could see the metal forest, could hear the eerie noises, glimpsed the shadowy figure ahead of him, and then suddenly turned a corner and found himself wandering through the machine rooms of the TARDIS, where there was metal, and shadows, but it was all quite real and not a dream. Another time he woke up from a nightmare that had clearly been influenced by his recent dream encounter with the Master: once again his skin was black and burnt, but this time he was rotting from the inside, decaying alive in the same way the Master had almost died. He had always wondered how that must have felt, and now he suddenly knew. He started waking up without being able to remember when he had fallen asleep.

On a trip to the TARDIS kitchen, the Doctor thought for a moment he saw a shadow walking beside him. Rummaging through the liquor cabinet, he heard someone say, very distinctly and with great disdain, "Pathetic." He closed his eyes. He knew whose voice it was, but that meant it could only be a dream or a hallucination.

Somehow, the Master had become the focal point of all that was wrong with the Doctor. It made sense. The Master was the first friend he had watched die without being able to save them - more than once. And he had never really taken the time to mourn the Master. By now the Master had been dead for years of the Doctor's personal timeline. Given such distance, the Doctor could admit to himself that he felt he could have made more of an effort to stop the Master from destroying himself back when the Master still had had some slivers of sanity left. The problem was that whenever he had met the Master, it had seemed that this time, the point of no return had finally been crossed. Only in hindsight he could tell that it could always get worse, and that maybe there was no point of no return.

It didn't help to dwell on his past mistakes, but maybe it was time to come to terms with his past. In one of his more coherent hours, while soaking in a tub of cooling water, too lethargic to get out and warm himself, he willed the phantom Master to appear to him once more. The Doctor had barely begun picturing him, when suddenly he found the Master perching on the edge of the tub, as if he had been there and watching the Doctor all along. Looking straight at the Master, he appeared perfectly solid, touchable, but his reflection on the water flickered like a broken TV screen. The Master didn't look quite like any of his past forms, but more like an amalgam of them all, bearded, brown-eyed, with grey in his hair to match the Doctor's. It was decidedly not like the Doctor had been trying to imagine him.

"Wonderful," the Doctor said. His voice was raspy from long disuse. "It appears I have more of a problem than I thought. I really am losing my mind, aren't I?"

"You're over-stressed, isolated and you haven't been eating or sleeping properly," the Master diagnosed with clinical disinterest. But then his voice turned sweet, in that intimate, loving way in which he often phrased his most deadly threats. "It makes you psychically vulnerable to all kinds of attacks."

"I would that there were any attackers," the Doctor snorted. He wondered why he hadn't realized this before. It was perfectly obvious to him now: he missed adversity, he longed for something to fight. Why hadn't he tried to land the TARDIS somewhere where there was trouble? It was as if his mind had been distracted from such ideas by a perceptual filter. Very strange.

The Master sneered at his complaint. "Self-pitying fool."

"You're dead, I don't have to let myself be insulted by you." The Doctor frowned as something occurred to him. "Wait a moment... that's it, isn't it? I'm not just imagining you because I feel guilty about you. That's not all of it. I picked you, you specifically, because of all the friends I've lost, you're the one most likely to attack me. I'm actually wishing you weren't dead so that there would be a chance of you showing up and threatening me."

The Master appeared annoyed by the Doctor's speculation, and hastened to correct him. "Death is a matter of interpretation in my case, but I assure you that I am quite real. It is true that my physical existence has ended … but in many ways, living with the stolen bodies of lesser species was no better than my current state." He gave the Doctor's underfed body a deliberately contemptuous once-over. "Do you have any idea what I would give to have a Time Lord body again? And here you are, making no good use of yours at all."

It had always irritated the Doctor when people gave unsolicited advice. Sometimes it seemed that everybody thought they knew better than he what he should be doing with himself. The Master was no exception, always complaining about wasted potential. But since the Master wasn't real, the conversation was absurd as it was, and the Doctor made no effort to make it less so. "What is your current state then? Eternal torment in the fires of hell?"

The Master seemed to warm to the subject, apparently pleased that the Doctor had asked. "When I fell into the Eye of Harmony, the black hole's energies tore apart the human body I inhabited at the time. The most excruciatingly painful experience, and since the inside of the Eye of Harmony is timeless, it was in a sense truly eternal torment. But it also gave me enough energy to fuel my psychic pattern forever. If I had your body, Doctor, I would have limitless regenerations. But as a mere psychic energy pattern, I'm in the curious position of being neither alive nor mortal - a ghost, if you will."

"What a load of rubbish! No one could survive that! You'd be frozen on the event horizon forever, and you most certainly couldn't harass me in my bathroom."

The Master chuckled. For a second, even his reflection was perfectly real. "So you do have a temper! I was beginning to think you had lost your touch, Doctor."

Sinking back into the bathtub, the Doctor expelled his anger with a single breath. He stared sullenly at the Master. "If you were here in any shape or form, I'd feel your psychic presence. Since the only minds here belong to me and the TARDIS, and we're surrounded by the Vortex, you can't be here. With all other possibilities eliminated, the only feasible explanation is that I'm going mad. Madder. Whatever."

"Really? Think harder, Doctor. I might be a manifestation of your subconscious, true, but there is one other explanation. If I'm not in your mind. . ."

Against his better judgement, the Doctor started thinking it through. Slowly, his mind got into gear, unfolding and analyzing the problem, arriving by the shortest possible path at the only remaining solution, " . . .if you're not in my mind, and the only other mind here belongs to the TARDIS, you're originating from the TARDIS. Her sentience is vast enough to mask any possible contaminations, and she's permanently linked to the Eye of Harmony. That's what you're telling me, right? That you somehow managed to rescue yourself from the Eye's event horizon into the TARDIS and are now lurking in her telepathic circuits as some sort of data ghost?"

"Oh, far more than a data ghost, Doctor. I'm not some imprint or echo of a living mind, no more than the TARDIS is a mere computer. I live, and I'm conscious, and your psychic vulnerability offers me the perfect opportunity to make myself noticed. If I could focus just a little more, pull together my psychic patterns and concentrate, I could even kill you like this." His expression turned wistful and bitter. "But I can't. My consciousness is mingling with your TARDIS like a smear of ink in a glass of water. I have to expend too much of my energy and concentration on holding myself together, or entropy would be doing to my mind what the Eye of Harmony did to my physical body. I would fall apart – disintegrate into smaller and smaller psychic atoms of myself."

The Doctor listened, trying to follow as best as he could. The Master's explanation vaguely plausible, but since his experience went past anything anybody had ever tried, it was impossible to verify. "I don't believe you," the Doctor stated flat out.

"You know it's not impossible!" The Master's agitation looked very genuine. "Omega survived being pulled into a black hole!"

"I'm not saying that it's impossible," the Doctor said, and rose out of the water, reminding himself that there was no one in the room but himself, and modesty was not necessary. "But it's far too convenient."

"Convenient?" the Master sputtered, staring at him. "Convenient for whom?"

"For me." He towelled himself off with a few quick, vicious motions. "If you're a hallucination, that is exactly how I would rationalize your existence. It explains why you suddenly showed up now, and it explains why I can see you but not feel you, and why your presence will have absolutely no real effect. It even explains my odd dreams. And most of all, it would put you into a desperate situation only I could get you out of. Don't you see? If you were real, I could save you!"

The Master's face shuttered, and he trembled, almost flickered with anger. "Save me? This isn't a cry for help, Doctor."

Sighing, the Doctor allowed himself one last glance at the Master. He really wished his old foe were real. At the moment, he would have given almost anything for an argument with the real Master. It always was like this when someone he had always known, someone he had once loved, died: the Doctor didn't really comprehend what that meant until the moment when with a sudden pang of longing he realized that he could never go back, could never meet them again.

"No, it isn't," he agreed with his memory of the Master. "You're just wishful thinking."

As if to prove him right, the Master paled to a thin, monochromic shadow, then just a few harsh lines of a face distorted by fury, and finally vanished entirely.

*

The conversation with his imaginary enemy turned out to be cathartic. It felt as if he had broken through a veil of confusion. For the first time since his regeneration, the Doctor's head was clear and his senses sharp. There was a spring in his step when he, still wearing the old dressing gown, marched into the console room. Later he would find something better to wear, but for now the most important thing was to hold on to his improved state of mind. And nothing would be better for that than talking to real people. Preferably people that made him properly angry – the Doctor still felt like having a good long argument with someone.

"Well then," he said to the TARDIS, slapping her console. His cheer was still largely a façade, but that was already much, much better than lying in bed and moping all day long. "I say we make a trip to Earth! Always a lot of irritating people to be found there!"

Humans. There was no point in avoiding them, even if he had just lost one. No, better to stare them right in the face and remind himself that by and large, humans weren't all that great. The Doctor selected temporal coordinates during one of the bountiful empires of humanity, which at the decline of their power always tended to devolve into bigotry, decadence and irrational fear-mongering. Having selected the coordinates, the Doctor took a deep breath and pulled a lever to dematerialize.

The time rotor started moving with a rattle and groan, up and down, pumping like the Doctor's two hearts. This was what he was born for, and what he would do until he died, and nothing, nothing at all could take the joy of travelling from him.

Stuttering, the time rotor fell and went silent. The Doctor stared at it for a moment longer, unable to breathe, but nothing else happened. The TARDIS hadn't even left the Vortex. "Not now!" he cursed. "Must everything always go wrong at the worst possible time?"

He rounded the console to have a look at the dematerialization circuit, and stopped dead in his tracks when he saw what was on the other side. How could he have missed it until now? But it was there, a neat pile of wires and circuits, installed around the dematerialization circuit like a choke-chain. "The Time Lords!" He had intended to shout, but fear made his voice toneless and thin.

They had messed with his TARDIS again. He ran his hands over the contraption, feeling faint and disoriented. No matter how his mind refused to accept it, the purpose of the addition to the console was obvious. It was a remote control for the TARDIS. They hadn't let him go freely after making him kill his friend. The Time Lords could call him back or move him around the cosmos like a pawn whenever they pleased, or they could strand him in the Vortex and forget about him entirely. He was trapped, alone with himself, with nowhere to go and nothing to do.

"A prison," the Doctor whispered, "it's a prison."


	2. Purgatory

The Doctor could feel the TARDIS shift around him like water, rolling over his thoughts in small waves. Gritting his teeth and squeezing his eyes shut more tightly, the Doctor turned onto his side. The bed creaked, but the presence around him persisted. He felt feverish, and his mouth was dry, so he spoke in thoughts only.

Go away.

But her soft, liquid mind was tainted, blackened by driftwood and a smear of ink. Something surrounded him persistently, almost like a breeze over his bare shoulders, a cloud of fog condensing on his skin.

With a catch of his breath, the Doctor realized that there was more than just her in the room with him. There were three minds present, his own, swimming in her much larger one, and a third, who was threading subtle fingers through the Doctor's thoughts. A laugh greeted him from the distance.

Do you believe me now?

He gave up, because he did believe the Master. He wanted to believe, because even if he was mad, at the moment madness and phantasms were preferable to reality.

My, my, Doctor. What dreadful dark thoughts. Have you given up so quickly?

The Doctor tried not to show how pathetically grateful he was for the Master's company, but he was shaking just a little on the bed. They've put me into solitary confinement. I think I have the right to a little nervous breakdown.

He could feel the Master's disdain, corrosive as acid. Giving up so quickly isn't like you.

The Time Lords, in mind the title was so much more than a pair of words, it was memories, bitterness, fear, all thrown at the Master's feet, would know if I so much as cut a wire on their remote control. Don't you even try mocking me. You've never gone nearly as far as I have in trying to defy them, because you're scared of them, and for good reason.

You shouldn't confuse prudence with fear. Only a fool would oppose them directly. The Master became more insistent, trying to worm his way into the Doctor's mind, prying at his brittle, tangled defences. It's quiet in your mind. I can sense it.

It's none of your business.

But it's so very interesting, Doctor. This is what you're afraid of, isn't it? Being alone fills you with dread because behind all the facades, there's nothing. A vacant, neglected space. You need the world to fill you up. You need an audience to put on a show, otherwise, there's just silence. You're an old, burnt-out performer facing rows upon rows of empty seats.

Very deep. You should write a poem – oh, but I forgot. You couldn't write even when you had hands to do so.

Don't be so touchy, Doctor. I like your silence.The Eye is never silent. It screams and screams in the heart of your TARDIS, and I, as you pointed out, have no hands to cover my ears.

The Master's words felt like a patronizing pat on the shoulder, but behind them the Doctor could sense a wall of exhaustion. You opened the Eye of Harmony. It's your fault if you can't stand the noise.

Let me in. An angry demand like this hurt on the psychic plane. It seemed to cost the Master a lot, because for a moment, his presence grew faint. You're just being coy. We both know you're going to let me in eventually.

The Master didn't plead, not even in his thoughts, but the Doctor remembered a time long ago when the Master had been frightened enough to beg him not to leave him stranded in the Vortex forever. If he waited a few hours longer, maybe the Master would be reduced to begging once more. The Doctor listened to his own breathing for a while. He knew that what he was about to do was as sensible as cutting your skin with a razor and jumping into a tank full of sharks.  
I'm mad after all, he thought almost plaintively as he let down his walls – or rather cut a cleft into them just big enough to let the Master squeeze through, like a camel through the eye of a needle. Suddenly the empty room was full with heavy presence, crowded, and noise came in through the door, a deafening cacophony, the eternal scream of a dying star. It ripped every clear thought into shreds, leaving only chaos and confusion. And then the door shut and they were alone in the Doctor's mind. They breathed in and out. There was silence.

It felt as if a mountain had come to rest inside the Doctor's skull, a mountain of blazing light and black shadows. This wasn't how contact was done. Even when two minds touched, they still remained anchored in their own bodies. But the Master had no body, and he had passed from the circuits of the TARDIS wholly into the Doctor's mind, using the Doctor's brain as the substrate of existence. The Doctor edged around him, nervous, touching him gingerly, prepared to fight him, but the assault he expected didn't come.

Instead, the Master thought a single word before he collapsed, infinitely heavy with exhaustion.

Sleep.

*

Forty-eight hours later, the Doctor woke. He stared at the ceiling, electrified, and knew that everything had changed. Even locked up and neutered by the Time Lords' control over his TARDIS, there was something he could do: something that would not please them at all if they knew of it. It was completely irrational, and a very, very bad idea and it very nearly made him laugh with glee. Giddy, he jumped out of the bed, pulled on the dressing gown, and telepathically explained his plan to the Master while hurrying towards the console room, slippers pattering on the floor.

Absolutely not, the Master said, and withdrew from the Doctor's mind in a rather impressive psychic flounce. But even when he was back in the TARDIS computers, he remained close to the Doctor, hovering around him, a sparking electron storm of interest.

I've got the necessary experience with artificial brains! I repaired and constructed several K9 models - -

You will not turn me into a robot dog!

"Ah, ah, is that a note of panic in your thoughts?" the Doctor asked out loud, then addressed the TARDIS while starting a full system analysis. "Well, old girl, let's see where you're hiding him... there! One Time Lord psychic pattern, considerably distorted… decay rate..." He fell quiet. He looked around himself, but the console room was empty. It needed more green, he thought. And why hadn't he gotten rid of that loathsome Seal of Rassilon yet? It was the last thing he wanted for interior decoration considering what the Time Lords had done to him. The silence stretched. He watched the numbers ticking away on the screen, tiny decimal by tiny decimal. Minds were never rigid, unchanging things, but this was entropy at work. Watching the Master burn up in slow motion – it was the story of their lives. "I'm serious about this."

So am I, Doctor.

"I'm offering you another chance! A new lease at life! Here, look at these numbers! Yes, the energy you leeched from the Eye of Harmony makes you close to immortal – but it won't be a nice life if you don't get a body quick. It hurts now, doesn't it? Well, in another century, you'll start to resemble an Alzheimer's patient."

The Master's reply was terse. I've survived worse.

It had always made him angry how little the Master took care of himself. The Master's wasted lives had been as much collateral damage as the countless people he had killed in his strife for power. He had brought himself down, to the point where the Doctor's anger about the Master crimes had turned into relentless pity. "And look where it got you! Don't you realize what this means? Unless you get a stable brain soon, the decay will be irreversible. You'll live, but you won't be yourself any longer." The Doctor threw up his hands. "Oh, why am I wasting breath yelling at you when I know perfectly well that you'd do anything to survive. Am I right? Well, good. You have what you wanted, I'm extending my hand to pull you back from the edge of destruction and all that."

Noble and predictable as always. What are your terms, then, Doctor? I'm sure there'll be plenty of them. I repeat myself, I won't have you turn me into a pet or toy for your amusement.

The Doctor scowled at the thin air around him. Trust the Master to make demands even when he was desperate. But at least they were negotiating now. "There'll be restrictions, naturally, what did you expect? I can hardly set you free in the universe to resume your usual scheming and wanton destruction. And since we're both old dogs who won't learn new tricks, I won't set my hopes on redemption. No, I reckon than you'll stay your dastardly, manipulative, insufferable old self no matter what body you are installed in, but confined to the TARDIS, there's not much harm you can do."

There was silence, then the Master asked, quite suspicious, And that is all? You'll be able to resist the temptation to… make me better?

The Doctor made an indignant noise at the back of his throat. "I detest all manners of brainwashing or lobotomy. That would be more up your alley, wouldn't it? Besides," admitting this to the Master instead of merely to a third party made him grind his teeth a little, "I've always quite liked your mind the way it is."

The Master managed to sound amused even psychically. Well, if you put it like that, I take the offer. With every intention of stabbing you in the back at the first possibility, of course.

"Of course."

*

Not all forms of consciousness developed in brains, but those that did tended to need some form of brain to exist as stable entities. The mind was never entirely separate from the substrate it lived in. It was shaped, generated, sustained by its physical parts, be they Time Lord or human, TARDIS circuits or a cluster of wiring and electrochemical cells.

The Doctor felt like a conduit himself. Building this delicate machine was no work for bare hands, not even Time Lord hands. He needed the TARDIS and her tools for the finer adjustments. Sitting in one of the tidier workshops, he guided her with his thoughts, and at other times she guided him with her minute precision and calm, keeping his fingers from shaking as he cradled the electric brain in his hands. And the Master was there, too, sharing mindspace and expertise with both of them. Letting the Master help was the pragmatic thing to do, but it was also much more than that. On a purely intellectual level, faced with a task like this, they had always been the perfect team. Back when they had both still had Time Lord bodies, they had been able to work hand in hand and finish each other's sentences, but this was so much more intimate and immediate. Thoughts arose, fuelled by both their memories, and instantly they shared the pleasure of recognizing their combined ingenuity.

There were moments when they got so close that they couldn't tell which of them it was who wanted their union to last forever, who wanted them to be one where they had been two, and which of them it was who was seized with terror whenever he couldn't tell where he ended. But they managed to maintain an equilibrium of fear and desire. They worked night and day in silent and frantic communion, while the product of their work began to resemble a cross between the Archives on Gallifrey and the telepathic circuits of a TARDIS, with bits of Time Lord anatomy thrown in.

When the brain was done, only the TARDIS could still tell how much time they had spent working. Gingerly, regretfully, and yet with a sigh of relief, the Doctor pried his mind from the Master's. The Doctor's head felt sore and his temples throbbed with exhaustion, but he stayed and watched as the Master eased into his new shell. He felt dizzy, marvelling that he had created such a thing, proud of himself for the first time since his regeneration. The Doctor was still excited when he left the workshop to give the Master time to adjust to his new home. He wandered, without aim, to the console room, where he approached the communications array the Time Lords had installed in his TARDIS. So far he had left it alone, but now he addressed it as if it were the High Council themselves, standing in his console room.

"Can any of you do this?" he asked it savagely. "You can't! No Time Lord has ever even tried it – because you haven't the imagination, the courage to try something new! All you do is waste away your lives doing nothing and forcing others to do nothing as well. But not me – "

The Doctor realized he had been shouting, and stopped, still panting with fury and something more, something better. Blood rushed in his veins, his skin tingled all over, the hairs stood on his arms and his hearts beat painfully fast. Even here, under house arrest in the TARDIS, there was adventure, and discovery, and space for resistance. He felt almost free.

*  
The Master hadn't given up on his plans to steal the Doctor's body. He had forgotten about it for a time while they worked together, even though he hadn't actively tried to hide it. They'd both kept their secrets The moment his mechanical eyes opened to the world, he would start with the recriminations, the taunts, the mindgames both petty and brilliant. He'd torture the Doctor with dark hints about his new state of being until the Doctor was soft and weakened and would succumb to his still superior psychic powers

"It's ironic, isn't it?" he asked. Being a head without body or limbs (and so far without skin or hair) was disconcerting. He had been vast and shapeless as a psychic pattern inside the oceanic mind of the TARDIS, more like a swarm of fish than a person. Now he couldn't move nor see nor sense his body, locked inside a dark metallic casing. So far all he could do was talk and listen as the Doctor fiddled with the pair of eyes he was about to insert into the yet empty eye-sockets. He did like his voice, though; the Doctor had done a good job of getting it just right. With a ribcage to add proper resonance, it would be perfect. In a way, the Doctor's attention to detail was flattering.

"You mean that after years and years of you trying to kill me, I'm saving your life?"

"No, I mean that after years and years of you fighting Daleks and Cybermen, you've finally become the creator of just such a creature. Just think what old Davros would say if he knew that you're joining the mad scientist ranks!"

The Doctor scoffed. "If anyone has turned you into a monster, it was you. I'm just salvaging what's left." His point, the Master had to concede, was valid, but he thought he heard a strain of discomfort in the Doctor's voice. He didn't like the comparison to Daleks and Cybermen, just as the Master had expected. "So you do know Davros, then? I always wondered if you two met behind my back."

"Alas, yes," the Master answered, too amused by the gossip to pursue his attempt at needling the. "He was very keen on an alliance – that is when he wasn't accusing me of secretly planning to steal his Daleks or working for the Time Lords. A paranoid, self-pitying plodder, isn't he? And it's hard to get a word in once he gets going."

"Yes, quite," the Doctor said dryly. "And that insane laughter every five minutes. Ridiculous man."

"Doctor! Are you comparing me to Davros? You wound me! No, really, you do."

"An eye for an eye," was the serene reply as the Doctor plugged in first the left, then the right mechanical eyeball. Vision flooded back into the Master's mind, light and shadows and colours, and finally he sorted the information into the shape of the Doctor's face, leaning close and watching him with genuine humour lighting up his pale eyes. "You started it, you should have known the ice was thin."

*

Over the next days the assembly continued. A spine and then a skeleton, bone by bone. In the mirror over the sink, the Master caught a glimpse of himself, now a being with limbs and a torso and a head, with eyes and the frozen grin of a skull, hard metal and smooth plastic. Naked down to his artificial tendons and bones. And next to him in the mirror image was the Doctor, working with his head bowed, his eyes hooded and the pale face tense in concentration. His long graceful fingers held a patch of false skin.

"Do you want to be conscious for this?" the Doctor asked.

The Master wasn't immune to vanity. The Doctor was his most critical audience, and the only one whose opinion truly mattered. The Doctor's mere glance eviscerated, even when the Master was fully prepared to face him. There had been times when he had hated his disfigured, dying bodies so much that he wanted to kill the Doctor just to stop him looking at what the Master had become. But the android body was not in a state of decay; in fact it was stronger and better than any biological body could ever have been. They had built it together, every step of the way, and if the Doctor didn't approve, he only had himself to blame.

"Yes," the Master answered, "I'll feel safer knowing that someone competent supervised you."  
Now the Doctor finally glanced up from the patch of skin. He had long, dark lashes that made the gesture almost appealing, despite the circles under his always slightly bloodshot eyes. His thin lips narrowed even further. "Has it occurred to you that this has the potential to be terribly awkward?"

"It has." If the Master could have smiled, he would have, but all he could manage at the moment was an insouciant tone.

The Doctor's stare turned suffering, then just plain annoyed. "Hold still," he ordered, and slapped the skin not very delicately onto the Master's shoulder.

"Oh dear, what horrible bedside manners."

Skin and nerves grew into each other, connecting, merging, sending the first confused, overwhelmingly intense messages of warmth and air and touch. It seemed, after such long deprivation, more real than his real skin had ever felt. The Master drew in a startled, hitching breath.

"Told you so," the Doctor muttered, without any satisfaction whatsoever.

It was hard to do anything but stare into each other's eyes while the Doctor attached his face, lips and eyelids, brows and nose, every last detail. It was equally hard not to close his eyes and fold into the touch while the Doctor stroked over the back of his head, smoothening his scalp. The brand new roots of his hair and beard tickled pleasantly each time the Doctor's hands brushed against them. When the Master looked at the mirror again, his face looked alive and quite handsome. The Doctor's workmanship was evident in it's features: they strongly resembled his last healthy regeneration. The Master decided to take it as a compliment for that regeneration, and it pleased him, since he felt a stronger kinship to his twelfth self than to any of his later incarnations. Who he was and who the Doctor wanted him to be were for once the same person. Since had hadn't had to change his ways to achieve that, the Master considered it a victory.

Cool fingers worked on his back, covering his shoulders and ribcage in skin, wandering down his spine, encircling his waist. Involuntarily, the Master let his head sag forward, shamelessly enjoying the moment.

"The hairs on the back of your neck are raised," the Doctor observed quietly after a moment. He had stilled, and although he sounded delighted by the discovery, his tone was carefully neutral.  
"Mm. Everything is working fine. Good work, Doctor."

While the Doctor worked on his chest and belly, the Master kept his features controlled, even though it was hard not to react to those nimble hands working on him. He didn't feel like a patient who needed to be cured, but like a slab of marble forcing the artist's hand. A heady rush of power surged through him at the sight of the Doctor's slightly flushed cheeks as he asked the Master to lie back so he could work on his legs. The Doctor didn't just need him to stave off his loneliness, but he wanted him so badly that his desire embarrassed him. The Master could have laughed out loud at his unexpected triumph.

When the Doctor finally had to turn to the Master's most private parts, the Master made no effort to hide his arousal. Hands lingered longer than they had to on his balls and his cock, parts of him that had no function but sex. The Doctor's glance darted up, and their eyes met in a long, intense stare. All embarrassment was gone from the Doctor's demeanour, and his grip was firm and steady as he wrapped his fingers around the smooth shaft and stroked upwards. For a second the Master was lost in the Doctor's cool, winter-grey eyes. It was their calm command as much as the friction of dry skin on dry skin that made him drop onto his back. It hadn't ever been like this, not even when they were young and comparatively innocent. Back then, they had only experimented, too guarded and self-conscious to let go. But now they had seen to the depth of each other's self, now they had shared thoughts and lifetimes of history. Now the Doctor knew what he wanted and had given the Master proof of his desire - -

"No." The Master pushed himself up on his elbows and seized the Doctor's hand, pulling it away from his cock. Although clearly disappointed, the Doctor didn't look surprised. He hissed sharply when the Master sat up and slid his hand underneath the Doctor's dressing gown to palm the Doctor's own considerable erection.

"Make up your mind, will you?"

"Oh, I have," the Master replied, withdrew his hand and slipped off the table. "In a way it's flattering to know that you built me with this in mind. Am I your idea of the perfect sex toy? That's quite a compliment, Doctor. But I've told you before. I won't be anybody's toy. If this is what you want from me, it's the last thing you'll get."

He padded out of the workshop on bare feet and was halfway down the corridor when he heard the unmistakable thump of a fist pounding a wall in frustration. The Master smiled triumphantly.

*

The next time they met, they had obviously both made a trip to the wardrobe room in the meantime. The Doctor, as always, preferred his layers and defences, his period clothing, whereas the Master had been delighted to find a simple suit of charcoal silk. Functional, yet elegant. Wandering through the TARDIS for some time after that, he eventually found himself in the Doctor's pantry, and that had led to this argument.

"You can't eat!" The Doctor's hands moved in sharp, rapid gestures of annoyance through the air. He looked as if he were about to throw himself over the delicacy-burdened table to protect it from the Master. "And this is a disgusting waste of perfectly good food!"

"It's not like anyone except the TARDIS had to work to produce it. Besides, can pleasure ever be a waste?" the Master asked philosophically, sipped from one of several wine glasses grouped before him, swirled the wine in his mouth and then discretely spat it into a copper bowl like a professional wine taster. "You gave me taste buds, Doctor; I'm putting them to good use."

"Is that - is that my Romanée Conti 2034? Do you know how close I came to creating a paradox just to get that one bottle?"

"I'm merely living up to my purpose," the Master declared, examining the label of the bottle with renewed interest. The Doctor snatched it away from him, hugging it protectively to his chest.

"Your purpose? And that would be the destruction of all my property?"

The Master rolled his eyes. He stilled, looking vaguely surprised, and did it again – there was something not quite right yet with the mechanism. Then he cleared his throat. "No, of course not. But since it appears that I cannot leave the TARDIS, or do anything of consequence at all, my purpose in life must be decadence and idleness."

He had of course tried to leave, but while the Doctor's TARDIS had greeted him quite warmly (possibly she didn't quite grasp that he wasn't a part of her) her coordinates were locked and the capsule remote controlled by the Time Lords on Gallifrey. He had considered trying to circumvent their control, but had to admit that the likelihood of succeeding was fairly small, and most likely they would end up being called back to Gallifrey. Any attempt to even go near the TARDIS doors with the intent to leave resulted in a momentary short circuit of his brain that left him in an undignified twitching heap on the floor. The Doctor had made true on his word: the Master couldn't leave, and so far he had no idea how to break the programming without breaking his brain.

This minor victory seemed to escape the Doctor, though, so eager was he to complain. "You could dedicate yourself to science!"

"I could also dedicate myself to cleaning the TARDIS, and yet I do not," the Master pointed out calmly.

Driven to desperation, the Doctor worked himself first through one bottle of fine wine, then the next, and then through a sizable part of the liquor cabinet's contents. Judging from the considerable practice in getting drunk that he demonstrated, it had become a bit of a habit in this regeneration. The Master watched, cataloguing another of the Doctor's weaknesses in this regeneration.

The Doctor was already quite drunk when he said suddenly, and with angry force in his raspy voice, "I never touched any of them and I feel… insulted that you think I would ever use anybody that way."

It was hard to catch up with the Doctor's muddled thought process. Apparently he was thinking of the Master's accusation of having built him as a sex toy. "I presume that by 'them' you mean your humans."

"I liked them a lot. All of them. A lot." The Doctor stared at his glass. It was half-empty. He was gripping it so tightly that his knuckles and fingertips were white.

"That's heart-warming. But I'm not one of them, Doctor. I doubt that you think I deserve as much moral consideration as your poor innocent pets."

The Doctor answered in a whisper, as if he were terrified of his own words. "But sometimes I think that you are like them."

Narrowing his eyes, the Master was prepared to tell the Doctor just what he thought about this comparison, but the Doctor seemed to be caught in a world of his own, barely aware of whom he was speaking to.

"It's as if just by meeting them, I set them on fire. When I take them away to see the stars and the past and the future, they become so much brighter, so much more brilliant than all the rest of their kind, but the smart ones… the smart ones get out and leave me before there's nothing left of them but cinders."

With each word the Doctor's head seemed to sink lower and lower. His dark hair, usually combed back and tugged behind his ears, was falling into his face in tangled strands. While the Doctor's misery left him cold, it embarrassed the Master to see his old friend throwing all dignity into the wind. Furthermore, it made him feel useless to be sitting there at the table with nothing to do while the Doctor did all the work of bringing himself down. And then there was the uncomfortable truth in the Doctor's words. He was a destructive force, a dangerous man to fall in love with, addictive and almost impossible to let go.

"So tell me, Doctor, which ones do you hate more – those who leave you, or those who stay with you until the bitter end?"

"It doesn't matter. I'll never let anyone travel with me again. Maybe… maybe I'll never travel again. After all, I have you and the TARDIS to keep me company." The Doctor downed the last of his whiskey.

"And again you confuse me with your dear companions," the Master sighed.

A dull laugh shook the Doctor. "Oh, I know you're not safe. You've been plotting against me right from the start. Those dreams I had were all your doing. But let me tell you a secret. I'm not better now. You're out of my head, and it still feels the same. Building your body kept it at bay for while, but it's even worse now. I know that we're trapped in here –"

The Doctor broke off in the middle of his sentence, staring at the wall. His face was terribly still, his eyes shone with a feverish blankness. He seemed to search for something, but without hope of finding anything. The emptiness in his stare sent a shiver down the Master's spine. He felt alive, yet completely insignificant next to the Doctor, who seemed to gaze into a fathomless void.

As transfixed as he was by the Doctor's expression, the Master startled when the Doctor suddenly grabbed the whiskey bottle, swept his glass and several of the empty bottles off the table, and smashed the bottle he held on the edge of the table. Shards exploded loudly all over the floor.  
"I should care about that, shouldn't I?" the Doctor demanded, his voice loud and clipped, on the edge of hysteria. Blood stained his hand, but he didn't let go off the broken bottleneck. "I should care about being trapped like this! But… I don't."

At this point he broke down completely, and collapsed into dry sobs, bent over and holding his head in one hand. After a moment, the Master recovered from his surprise and inwardly chided himself for being so impressed with the Doctor's melodramatic breakdown. He got up, pried the Doctor's bleeding hand away from the shattered bottleneck, and none too gently forced him out of his chair and along to the nearest bathroom. On the way there, the Doctor broke into outbursts of slurred abuse several times. He tried to get away from the Master, putting up quite a struggle in spite of his unsteady feet. But once he noticed the tiled floor and walls, however, he gratefully dropped to his knees by the toilet and emptied his stomach.

The Master could have left him there. He didn't feel compelled to be around the sick and weak, derived no thrill from assisting them. But to be left alone was exactly what the Doctor wanted and the Master wasn't inclined to give him that. The Doctor had seen him humiliated and defeated so many times: now it was the Master's turn. He waited until the Doctor slumped with his back against the wall, sitting on the floor with a blank expression and a sweaty, pallid face. Then the Master pulled him to his feet again and made him strip.

"Can't you leave me in peace?" the Doctor croaked.

"No." The Master trapped him against the tiled wall to undo his trousers, batting away the Doctor's hands. "And frankly, I've heard more convincing protests, Doctor."

"I'll let you know I'm a – I'm a –"

"A filthy, whining drunk," the Master suggested. He got up close to the Doctor's face, sneering at the stubbled cheeks and reddened eyes. "Of all the self-destructive habits it's possibly the least attractive."

Naked, the Doctor shivered from head to toe although it was pleasantly warm in the room, and cowered passively in the bathtub while the Master let the water run in. Sickened by the sight, the Master turned away to look through the vast collection of soaps and lotions in the cabinet until he happened on a shaving kit. There was a brush and soap, but what made him pause was the knife with its shining, clinical edge. He glanced over his shoulder. The Doctor had entirely ceased his protests, and made no attempt to leave the bathtub. His back was turned to the Master, exposing sharp shoulder-blades, clearly visible ribs and a bony spine. His hair clung wetly to the back of his neck. Just a few inches away, his pulse beat under the pale skin.

The Master brushed up foam, tipped the Doctor's head back with a finger under the chin and spread the foam over the Doctor's cheeks. The blade scraped over his jaw, but the Doctor did not twitch. He seemed to have no energy left in him to fight any of it. It had to be that, because otherwise he trusted the Master, who couldn't believe that even the Doctor would be so foolish. He stilled, the blade on the Doctor's throat.

"I can't seem to leave you, Doctor. Tell me, what other restrictions did you program me with?"

"None," the Doctor whispered. The Master couldn't tell if it was the Doctor's throat moving with the words or his own hand that made the knife press harder against the white skin, drawing the first red drop of blood. The Doctor closed his eyes.

"Interesting," the Master said. "Because there's this little voice in my head, and I can't for the life of me tell if it's my own conscience or some helpful suggestions you added to it. It's talking about mercy right now..."

The Master let his voice trail off. After a moment, the Doctor opened his eyes. His gaze was cold and perfectly sober, bordering on angry. Too proud to beg for it. That unexpected glimpse of strength was almost enough to move the Master's hand. He realized that the Doctor hadn't been nearly as out of control as he pretended to be, but had been deliberately pushing them towards this point. If the Master had had veins, the blood would have run cold in them at this moment, because he was angry, too, and the reason for his anger startled him. Because what made him angry wasn't the Doctor's attempt to use him this way: it was the Doctor's unconditional surrender.

"Oh, very good, Doctor," he said softly. "You've been playing it safe. You knew that if I wouldn't readily replace your pets, I would at least do you the favour of ending this farce. Either way, you win."

Grey eyes widened in surprise when the Master bent down to kiss him on the lips, still keeping the knife pressed against the Doctor's throat. All the Doctor could do was tremble against him in fury. After a moment, though, he seemed to regain his senses, and pulled the Master's hand roughly away from his throat. Humiliated shame burnt in the Doctor's eyes. His chest was flushed all over, and a glance down showed the Master that the Doctor was hard, and only getting harder from being stared at.

"You must be terribly confused," the Master mused. "Tell me, would you like me to fuck you first and then slit your throat, or the other way round?"

A mute glare was all the Doctor managed, but he sucked in a sharp breath at the Master's blunt question. Laughing, the Master laid down the knife on the edge of the bathtub. "I'm afraid you'll have to take care of this yourself. If I do this, it will be on my terms."

*

There was really no dignified way of dealing with how he had humiliated himself in front of the Master other than pretending it hadn't happened. His co-prisoner was still around, as the Doctor kept finding traces of his presence everywhere in the TARDIS: whole shelves of books were suddenly ordered by topic, tools kept vanishing, the TV remote in one of the recreational rooms was left on the wrong side of the sofa. Little reminders of the Master's infuriating presence which now only served to bring a flush to the Doctor's face. Three days after the incident, however, he walked into the console room only to find it completely redesigned.

It was vast in proportion now, larger than it had ever been. An enormous spiral staircase wound its way up towards a ceiling so high above the console that it vanished in hazy distance. The console itself had a shiny brass look, whereas the walls were black. "Of course," the Doctor muttered. "It had to be black. Couldn't he have gone with a colour that better suits my complexion? "

Then he discovered the contraption. It looked like a cross between a gramophone, a tea lady's trolley and a Wimshurst machine. It was clearly beautiful, possibly brilliant, and probably deadly. Or maybe it made music. A single black cord connected it with the console. Drawn by inescapable curiosity, the Doctor circled it several times, trying to deduce its function. His eyebrows rose progressively higher.

"It's a... phone?" he asked, frowning, and then suddenly snapped his fingers. "The Time Lord's communications' array! He turned it into this… this wonderfully silly thing. Oh, that mad, mad genius."

The Doctor suddenly found himself laughing helplessly at the Master's act of aesthetic sabotage. He grabbed the console, holding his belly, laughing until it ached and a multitude refracted, echoed voices seemed to laugh with him in the empty console room.

*

The Doctor was in a good mood that night, and let himself be inspired by the Master's redecoration activities and finally did something to make his own barren room a bit more habitable. A nice Victorian fireplace with a marble mantlepiece, dark wood for the floor, silk to cover the claw-footed armchairs, a potted palm-tree, a desk and shelves of dark chestnut wood to fill with books and a much nicer, downright baroque bed than the Spartan one he had chosen before. When he'd be done with this room, the Doctor decided, no one would possibly accuse him of trying to do some sort of penance by living in a monk's cell.

After puttering around with furniture and decoration for a long time, he finally decided to go to bed, maybe read something short. He settled on Murders in the Rue Morgue, counting on the excursions about whist and draughts to put him to sleep. But he got around to the newspaper article about the two dead women, a scene far too vividly described for a paper: the men rattling at the door while the last cries still rang out, and breaking in to find the room in shambles, the ash and soot everywhere, blackening the room, and the girl in the fireplace, dead and blackened as well. He pulled at her hands, her slack body, still warm, still perhaps in the last convulsions, burning with life a moment ago, but she was stuck, her body wedged into a too-tight space. And behind him the loud, clamouring men, throwing more wood into the fireplace, lighting the fire until the scent of smoke crawled up into his nose and flames licked at his back as he wrapped his arms around her waist, desperately pulling until suddenly there was a loud crack, like bones breaking, like a door being thrown open –

Jerking awake, the Doctor sent the book flying off the bed and sat bold upright, his hearts hammering painfully and his mouth stale with fear and the stench of burnt things. For a second he was left without orientation, not even sure which of himself he was, but then he saw who had woken him up: the Master, by throwing open the door and coming in without knocking.

The Master was missing an arm. It seemed to have been burned away along with his jacket sleeve, right up to the shoulder, where still sparking wires and flaps of shrivelled plastic skin hung out from the frayed, scorched fabric of his jacket. It explained the burnt smell, and the sight cheered up the Doctor immediately. Of course it wasn't very kind to be delighted by the Master's misfortune, but it meant that there was trouble, and trouble meant contact with the outside world.

"Are we being invaded?" the Doctor asked, jumping out of the bed and clapping his hands, "Lovely! Is it the Cybermen? No? Oh, I know, a Vortisole bit off your arm - "

"Flesh-eating plants." The Master's voice was tight and somewhat breathless and he was clenching his teeth.

"Oh, that's novel! Are they ambulatory flesh-eating plants?"

"Don't get too exited - I believe the giant orchid I stuck my hand into is both solitary and unable to leave your greenhouse."

Very slowly, the Doctor's face distorted into a grimace of horrified disbelief. He slumped back down onto the bed, running a hand through his hair. "You... stuck your hand into a flesh-eating orchid. Assuming there was a reason, may I ask why? Or is this how you went through thirteen regenerations in the time some people take to graduate from the Academy?"

The Master stiffly lowered himself into one of the armchairs, completely ruining the cream silk cushions with machine oil and electrochemical fluid. "I wanted to see how serious you were about this body being able to experience all sensations of the flesh. Pain seemed a logical starting point. Was there a reason you made it quite so realistic? Perhaps you were already thinking ahead to possible punishments in case I should misbehave..."

"Punishments! What do you take me for? The only one being punished here is me! Tell me again what made me think this... living arrangement between us would be a good idea?" Still muttering, the Doctor came over and knelt by the armchair to look at the ruined shoulder. "Let me have a look at this..."

Corroded and twisted, the artificial muscles and bones looked uncomfortably real. The Doctor stopped himself before he let the similarity carry him away and back onto memory lane. This was the Master, and he had deliberately done this to himself. And even though the pain had to be horrible, it was still nothing compared to the fall into a black hole. His compassion was therefore wasted and probably unwanted. All the Master needed from him was a quick fix.

"Now why would you choose such a nasty method to experiment on your pain receptors? Not to impress me – you only came here because you couldn't repair the damage with just one hand left. That means you wanted it to be especially painful, which is unlike you. Aha!"

He punched the Master's side with one finger. "That's it! You were trying to burn out your lower brain functions by overloading them! Because you don't strictly need them, and they're what keep you from leaving the TARDIS!"

The Master sighed exaggeratedly. "You've seen through my scheme, Doctor. Wasn't it clever, though?"

"About as clever as allying yourself with the Daleks, I should say," the Doctor grumbled. "This is going to take some work repairing. If it hurts too badly, you can turn yourself off for all I care, because I'm going back to bed." Turned off, the android body powered down all its functions except the brain, depriving it of all sensory stimulus, including pain. It was petty to ask it of the Master, but not, the Doctor thought, truly cruel. "Let this be a lesson for you! It's the first rule of travelling in this TARDIS: do not stick your hands into things you don't understand…" Still ranting, the Doctor got up and turned away, undoing his tie and his cufflinks, then taking off his waistcoat. When he turned back around to the bed, he found the Master standing on the other side, facing him with an ironic, insolent stare while undoing his jacket one-handed.

"You're right, Doctor," the Master said smoothly. "I wouldn't want to get in between you and your beauty sleep just because I happen to be in excruciating pain."

"I said you could turn yourself off."

"Oh, I will, Doctor, I will."

The gall of what the Master obviously intended to do struck the Doctor speechless for a moment, and he just angrily went on unbuttoning his shirt while glaring daggers at the Master. Without paying much attention to their clothes, they undressed, slowly and deliberately, each movement and glance provocation, waiting for each other to call the bluff. The space between them seemed to be one thundercloud of sparking tension. The Master was slower thanks to his handicap, but he had fewer layers to take off, and so they finished up with surprising synchronicity. The Doctor seized the covers on his side with a sharp, angry motion, and the Master mirrored him.

"There are other rooms in the TARDIS, you know. Other beds," the Doctor snapped, getting under the covers. "Or you could always pick a nice, cosy storage closet."

"But I'm just a robot," the Master returned with deadly sweetness and followed him under the covers. "Why would I need a room of my own? I can just turn myself off, surely it doesn't matter where."

The Doctor grabbed the pillows and blanket, pulling them to himself. He felt extraordinary childish and it was wonderful. "No, you're perfectly right. Obviously you don't need covers, either, as a robot." He pulled the tassel underneath the bedside lamp to turn off the lights, and rolled around to face away from the Master. "Good night, Master. Sweet dreams of electric sheep and all that."

Beside him, sounding surprisingly close, the Master chuckled softly. Cloth rustled, and two cool fingertips ran slowly down the Doctor's naked back, wrenching a toneless gasp from him. "You can be so wonderfully cruel sometimes, Doctor," the Master whispered. "Goodnight."

The touch disappeared, and yet still ghosted over the Doctor's skin, an electrified trail of contact memory. After a long moment, he exhaled sharply and shuddered. He was suddenly painfully aroused, his cock hard and sensitive against the linen sheets. Swallowing, he snuck his hand down there to wrap his fingers around it. He squeezed, but it wasn't enough. He wanted to jerk himself off, right here and now, with the Master watching him like he had done as the Doctor undressed. Biting his lips, he flopped onto his back. "So," he said into the silence, "what exactly are we doing here?"

The Master didn't reply, which was curious. The Doctor turned his head, and found him lying on his back, eyes open and face slack as if in sleep, his one arm by his side and his legs outstretched. He wasn't breathing or blinking. A dead thing, lying beside him in the bed, smelling ever so slightly of acrid smoke. The Doctor's throat convulsed in a sudden pang of nausea. But it was only a memory, an echo of dream that haunted him. The Master was alive, if lifeless, his psychic presence bending the space around him like the gravitational field of a celestial body. The Doctor closed his eyes, ignored the body, and opened his mind to the intangible life that engulfed him, the Master, the TARDIS, the siren song of time.

*

The Master had given the Doctor almost eight hours before turning himself back on with a certain amount of nervous anticipation. The only sense he had left to tell him about the world outside his metal skull were his psychic abilities, and what he sensed was that the Doctor was close and content. But he opened his eyes only to find the Doctor curled up on the other side of the bed, as far away from him as possible, snoring softly. Rejection had always been a bitter cup to drink, but now he couldn't even slink away quietly to plot his revenge. He still needed the Doctor's help.

As soon as the Doctor was done repairing him, the Master got up and left. He wondered what he had been thinking. When he had entered into this agreement with the Doctor, he had sworn to escape or kill the Doctor at the first possible moment. And what had he to show for it? A half-hearted experiment with leaving the TARDIS, a few petty arguments and a perfectly good opportunity to slit the Doctor's throat that he hadn't taken up. To make things even worse, he had let the Doctor's obvious physical attraction lull him into believing that there was more to it.

Like Pavlov's dog, he was a slave to the ringing bell of the Doctor's attention – as soon as he got it, he dreamed of more. And why did he even want the Doctor? Self-pity and moodiness were hardly attractive. But it was always like this. The Doctor's weaknesses attracted him just as much as his strengths, if not more. He couldn't resist the Doctor when he was in a tight spot, helpless, trapped, hurting, about to be broken by someone else's hand. The temptation of mending him, reshaping him to suit the Master's own needs was too strong.

But if the Doctor had considered the him an equal, a friend, a potential lover, then he wouldn't have brushed his drunken breakdown under the carpet so easily. If the Master had shown such weakness, he would have been mortified and murderous. But since the Master was only a toy to the Doctor, an amusing diversion, he could shrug it off. Last night's mockery and this morning's cool disregard was all the proof that the Master needed to know that the Doctor would never again think of him as a worthy enemy.

There was only one last thing to do. Of course, there had always only been one ending to their story.

*

"Thank you," the Doctor said absently, turning a page of the Galactic Gazette. The nice thing about travelling in time was that it was always today's paper, even when it was several centuries old. Then he frowned, looked down at the tray, the china tea pot, the dainty little cup of steaming Darjeeling, the silver teaspoon and the sugar bowl. From there he looked at the Master. "Are you serving me tea?"

The Master locked his hands behind his back, smirking down at him. "What else would a domestic android do?"

The Doctor narrowed his eyes, and then answered with a sneer, "You're perfectly right. Carry on." He wasn't going to be taunted this easily.

Serenely, he added the sugar and stirred his tea. It smelled superb. One thing plucky female companions, however British, tended to lack, was proper skill in preparing tea. The Master still watched him, now frowning and serious. Served the Master right for never being content with the way things were. The Doctor had never so much as hinted at the Master being some sort of servant, but of course had to be so bloody touchy and paranoid. The Doctor lifted the cup to his mouth, blowing once over the hot liquid. Just as his upper lip dipped into the tea, the cup was smacked violently out of his hands. The china shattered on the TARDIS floor, while the Doctor yelped in pain as scalding tea soaked his shirt-front.

"Of all the under-handed, juvenile - "

"It was poisoned," the Master said coldly, turned around and left the room.


	3. Hereafter

He found the Master in the console room, both hands planted on the shining new brass console, his head bowed. A cold shiver ran down the Doctor's back as he realized that to look so shaken, the Master must have truly meant to poison him with the tea. It hadn't just been a whimsical prank. Something the Doctor couldn't even guess at had driven the Master to the point where even an eternity alone in the TARDIS had seemed more appealing than living with the Doctor. This time the Master had wanted the Doctor dead, once and for all and no last minute twist, no eleventh hour rescue would have saved the Doctor's life if the Master hadn't stopped himself.

Although the Master had to be sensing the Doctor's presence, he didn't react. In all the years they had known each other, the Doctor had never seen his old enemy look so truly defeated. It was a universal constant that no matter how many of his plans failed, no matter how bad the odds got, the Master wouldn't give up. This cat-like ability to land on his feet was one of the things they had in common, and the Doctor grudgingly admired it about the other man. There was always another day, another game to be played, and even if he cursed at his defeats, deep down the Master always took them in stride.

Except that this time it wasn't a defeat. Deliberately or not, the Master had called his own bluff and shown his cards. It was game over, for both of them. The Doctor had no idea how to go on after this. The prospect of having to face the Master without all the old, comforting rules of their enmity terrified him.

Cautiously he approached the Master. "I like the phone," the Doctor said, wincing at his own tone. It sounded as if he were handing the Master a consolation prize. Still, he went on, unable to stop himself. "And I suppose the new console room look isn't too bad. How did you manage to persuade the TARDIS to change her interior configuration for you? I've never quite seen anything like it. And she usually doesn't listen to anyone but me – if that."

The Master's voice was soft. Something was very wrong with his tone. All fight had gone out of it. "It wasn't so difficult. Haven't you realized yet? I share her Rassilon Imprimatur."

The Doctor stepped up to the console to stand beside the Master. A glance at his face revealed nothing that could help him understand. The man next to him hardly looked alive. Given no better alternative, the Doctor seized up the Master's nonsensical claim. "You've no symbiotic nuclei in your blood – you haven't even got blood. And a TARDIS can't be bonded to two Time Lords at once."

"I'm not talking about symbiotic nuclei, Doctor." The Master turned to face him. He spoke dreamily, as if the words hardly mattered to him. "The TARDIS synthesized most of my components. If you wanted to be poetic about it, we are of the same flesh. She thinks I'm part of her."  
It was hard to wrap his mind around the implications. The Doctor let his hands run over the console, feeling her hum quietly under his touch.

"That's funny," he said quietly, even though it wasn't the right word for it at all. "The TARDIS is... she's the most loyal friend I've ever had. She can be terribly difficult at times, you know? But she means the world to me. Do you know what the worst part about being exiled to Earth was? Not your constant meddling, or having to write mission reports for UNIT or being stuck in one time and place – it was not being able to talk to her properly because of what the Time Lords did to our minds. She was right there in front of me, but I just couldn't say the things I needed to say, and she just wouldn't listen. It was as if my oldest friend had become a stranger. Home was never Gallifrey. It was her. Sometimes I think that all of the Time Lords could just go to hell and I'd be perfectly happy if only the two of us survived."

"That's very touching," the Master said flatly. The Doctor idly flipped a switch. Nothing could happen of course, they were still coordinate locked. He had to spell it out for the Master.

"Everyone leaves," the Doctor said, flipping the switch back, and forth again, and back. "Nobody ever stays. Except her. And you."

He could see the Master's hands tremble slightly out of the corner of his eyes. The Master made a small noise, as if trying to say something, and then moved abruptly closer to look up at the Doctor. The Master's eyes were nearly black, and yet terribly bright. All the life was back in them, and the Doctor's hearts skipped a beat as he realized that in another second, the Master would believe him, and then thing would get serious.

With a sudden, rigid grin that might as well have been a cry of terror, the Doctor blurted out, "Well, and the Daleks. They tend to come back as well."

The Master's blank, dazzled expression told the Doctor that he had really just ruined the moment with a cheap joke. Even though he expected horrible retaliation from the Master, he was selfishly relieved. But to his surprise, the Master dropped his gaze and started laughing softly.

With every passing second, the Doctor felt more ashamed of himself.

*  
Leaving the console room, the Master started walking without a clear aim in mind. At times he didn't know where he was or where he was going. He felt weightless, yet keenly alive. Curiously, he couldn't tell if it was anger or happiness that sat in his chest like a ball of heat. It was only an imagined reaction, he told himself, the internal temperature of his body was always the same. But the feeling was true, truer than anything he had felt for many years, pure and undiluted.

He hadn't felt like this on the day when he had managed to kill the Doctor's fourth self, or during those short minutes when he had let himself believe that the Doctor would leave Earth to the mercy of Axos and run away with him. It hadn't been like this when they had kissed for the first time in their first incarnations. There were only two instances in his memory that could compare to what he felt now: the raging, passionate collapse into simplicity that the cheetah infection had caused, and the absolute stillness in his hearts when he had gazed into the Untempered Schism.

*

If the Doctor had been searching for the Master, he could just have asked the TARDIS. So that was not what he was doing. It was more that he was deliberately wandering from room to room, knowing that it marginally increased the chance of finding the Master if the Master was hiding from him and on the other hand it decreased the chance that the Master would find him if he went looking for the Doctor.

The Doctor found him in the music room with the wood-panelled walls and the glittering chandelier, and the shelves of music sheets and instruments. The Master was seated on one of the low benches with red upholstery that lined the walls. In the large empty room he looked a little lost, sitting there with his eyes closed and a slight frown, listening to an old gramophone.

For a second the Doctor was tempted to quietly close the door and leave. He still didn't know what to say to his old friend. But the crooning, rhythmic, familiar song ensnared him, pulling him deeper into the room, his feet instinctively moving with the beat on the parquet. The Master opened his eyes. "Gramophone records of Venusian chamber jazz," he said, his voice just carrying over the music. "Wherever did you get them, Doctor?"

"Long story," the Doctor said. It had been so long ago that he scarcely remembered it. He felt a pang of nostalgia. He, Susan, Barbara and Ian on Venus. Those had been good times. Everything had been so new back then when his path hadn't yet been paved with old, painful routines. Barbara had taught him how to dance the foxtrot. Time Lords didn't dance, but the Doctor had been a good dancer in all the regenerations that followed. Even now the rhythm loosened his stiff legs, seducing a swing into his step.

"So. I didn't know you liked music."

The Master didn't laugh at the silly remark, but instead gave him a stare that was hard to meet. "It's better than silence."

Cringing inwardly, the Doctor felt his discomfort well up again. He picked up the needle on the gramophone and set it to another song that he remembered. Running and shouting and near apocalypses weren't currently likely to distract the Master, but perhaps the Doctor could improvise.

"Do you dance?"

The Master raised his brows. "Sometimes I think you take going native a little too seriously, Doctor."

"I take that as a no? Well, it's never too late to learn!"  
He seized the Master by the hand and pulled him up. The Master glared, and moved stiffly, but the Doctor glared back, and with lots of determination forced the Master into participating. Once he did, it was easy to teach him - the Master simply could not bear to fail at such a simple task, and all Time Lords had an ear for rhythms. It came with the territory: in a way, music was just another way to keep the time. While the music grew wilder and faster, the Master danced with a single-minded frown, letting the Doctor guide him across the dance floor, but towards the end of the record, as the music became softer and slower, he reversed their positions, drawing the Doctor close and taking the lead.

As the last mournful note drew to its end, the Master looked up at the Doctor with a silent, persistent question in his eyes. The Doctor swallowed. He would have liked to apologize, or kiss the Master, but the Master looked at him for a moment longer, still with that piercing gaze. Unable to meet it any longer, he averted his eyes from the Master, who nodded calmly as if the Doctor had given him the answer he needed. Without making a fuss, the Master rested his head on the Doctor's shoulder, claiming that space as his own as if there could be no doubt that it belonged to him. In the quiet that followed the music, their footsteps were loud taps on the parquet, perfect in rhythm and harmony. Neither of them said a word.

*

They went back to the Doctor's room together. The Master remained silent while the Doctor kept up a steady stream of talk about dancing that had started to flow from his lips as soon as they had stopped. Even in this comparatively surly regeneration, the Doctor had still kept his extraordinary ability of talking about absolutely everything without saying anything. The Master didn't care about a word the Doctor said. They both knew that dancing was a mating ritual of primitive cultures, an organized kind of foreplay. Asking him to dance was the Doctor's way of asking him to skip the talking and go straight to the fun bit.

"You haven't heard a word I've said, haven't you?" the Doctor asked without reproach when they were in his room. The Doctor had installed himself in one of the claw-footed chairs with only a furtive glance at the bed. His awkwardness was immensely frustrating, and plainly ridiculous in a man his age, but also quite a boost to the Master's confidence. He had been wrong, very wrong, when he thought that the Doctor didn't care, that he considered the Master only a diversion.

"Not at all," the Master replied smoothly. He remained on his feet, and paced the length of the room, studying the shelves and the desk. Considering what he was about to do, it was impossible for him to sit down. "You're being very interesting tonight, Doctor."

The Doctor squinted suspiciously at him, and instantly switched from awkward to bristling and defensive. "You know, that almost sounded convincing."

"I've come to a conclusion," announced the Master. He turned towards the mantelpiece of fireplace, and finally found what he was looking for. He picked up a blue, prism-shaped crystal the length of his lower arm and weighed it in his palm. "I'm terribly sorry it took me so long. There's really no excuse."

"Are you going to share?"

"It's quite simple. We need to have a talk."

The Doctor looked awfully surprised when the Master hit him over the head with the prism. He sagged forward in the chair, threatening to slip out of it, so the Master dropped his weapon and caught him. Lowering the Doctor onto the floor, the Master first checked his head. The attack had been very precise. There wasn't any blood, and only a small swelling. The Doctor's slack face appeared almost relieved. The Master shook his head fondly at the unconscious man.

*

The Doctor came to with a bleary groan and tugged once at the handcuffs before going slack on the table with a huff. "Is this what I think it is? I thought we had gone past the stage were 'talk' means 'torture session'."

The Master stood close-by, but where the Doctor couldn't see him. "Trust me, I wouldn't resort to such means if there were alternatives."

"Have mercy," the Doctor drawled in a tone barbed with sarcasm, "Do you have any idea how frequently I get tortured? It's so... routine. And I don't even enjoy it in this regeneration."

The Master curled his fingers around the back of the Doctor's neck, rubbing his thumb in small circles on the soft skin behind the Doctor's left ear. After he had knocked the Doctor out, the Master had dragged him to the very lab where his android body had been constructed, taken off the Doctor's shirt, thrown him over one of the work tables and manacled his hands to a table leg.

"Don't you?" the Master asked, and picked up the riding crop he had brought with him. He brought it down on the Doctor's back twice in quick succession but without much force, watching the bound man jerk violently each time, a response that was in no way justified by the relatively negligible sting of the crop. "You're giving yourself away, Doctor."

The Doctor didn't answer him this time. He was too busy trying to get his breath under control. Sweat was breaking out all over his back. The Master gave him a moment to recover. He didn't want to end this too quickly.

"No more feeble denials? Tell me, why didn't you program this body so I couldn't hurt you? A few subtle changes to my electrochemical cells, a few crossed wires, and I would have been loyal and good and brave, your dearest friend and companion - "

The riding crop bit into his exposed back again, causing the Doctor to hiss through clenched teeth.

"Free will," he cursed.

"Of course, Doctor," the Master agreed mockingly, smiling at the needy sound the Doctor made when he dragged the crop across his back. "What else."

The Doctor had started trembling, even though the Master had hardly started hurting him. His voice was high and frantic, as if he were close to hyperventilating. "I'm not a monster. I don't... create monsters."

"No. You merely give them second chances that they don't deserve."

Four hard blows across the Doctor's shoulders made the trembling stop, and after another four, left to right and right to left over his back and again, he tossed his head like a stubborn, bucking horse. His voice was rough, but no longer confused. "You want a confession? Alright! I don't want you to leave. I want you to stay with me forever, no matter if we're trapped in here or free. Do you get that? Forever. What else do you want?"

He ruffled the Doctor's hair. "I think you know."

Cursing him colourfully, the Doctor bit out, "I want you. Stop playing games and fuck me already."

"Delightfully direct, but no. You know what I want to hear."

The Master felt tempted to skip the rest. In moments like these, he was always overcome with a fierce, possessive tenderness for the Doctor. The Master wanted to have him, not just hurt him, to hold him, soothe him, take him, own him. Right now the Doctor would let him do just that. But the Master forced himself not to be selfish. They weren't done yet with the confession, there was more he needed to hear, and more the Doctor needed to say.

Regret mingled with anticipation as the Master ran his hand along the Doctor's quivering side just once. The Doctor didn't expect him to return to the whipping after such a gentle caress, and at the first blow he gasped out loud in surprise. Angry red welts had had time to appear on his back. Soon there were more, and they grew redder. The Doctor's groans became louder, then started to sound more like sobs. Sweat and blood glistened on his back under the bright light. The Doctor was a mess, and twitched at each sting of the crop, but he seemed lost in the pain, making no effort to speak again.

The Master put down the crop. He opened a bottle of scented oil that he had brought with him for just such a purpose, and spread it over his fingers before gently rubbing it into the bloodied welts. It was a cruel trick, as the essential oils that gave it its scent burned in the wounds like salt. It was the mix, the counterpoint of soothing, gentle touch and searing pain that it impossible to bear. The Master kept massaging him until the Doctor's sobbing began to sound hoarse. Then he bent close to the Doctor's head, kissing the sweat-damp hair.

"Doctor?"

"Please. No more."

"You know that that's the last thing I'll listen to if I'm out to break you."

The Doctor laughed shakily. "Please, you haven't even tried."

"Perhaps you're right. This is going nowhere I really should stop for tonight. Here, let's take off those handcuffs – "

"No." That single syllable told the Master that finally, the Doctor was ready. Unexpected tension flooded the Master as he put the keys for the handcuffs down onto the table to hear what the Doctor would say. The Doctor pulled and jerked against his bounds, trying to raise his head and look at the Master to stop him from leaving. His voice was breaking on the words, stumbling over the syllables in his haste to get them out. "I don't care that you don't deserve a second chance. I don't care that you're a murderer. I should hate you for the things you've done. But I don't. I never have. It wouldn't have been you. If I had programmed you." The Doctor sucked in a ragged, gasping breath and repeated himself, "It wouldn't have been you."

For a moment, the Master was too stunned to respond. He had wanted to hear this, expected it, even, but never quite believed that the Doctor would say it. Before, the Master would have given up half his share of the universe just to be with the Doctor, but to hear this on a daily basis, he thought he could give it up altogether.

The Doctor scarcely had any strength left in him. His voice was small as he said, "Isn't that enough?"

"Good Doctor," the Master hastened to soothe, patting his straining arms. "Yes, that's quite enough."

He turned away discreetly, giving the Doctor a moment. He didn't mention the uncontrolled shivers, the silent sobs that kept shaking the Doctor's body; instead he washed his hands and picked up the second bottle of oil he had brought. By the time he returned to the Doctor, the other man had calmed down a little. He didn't protest or say anything at all when the Master undid the Doctor's belt and stripped him of trousers and underwear. The Doctor groaned a little when the first slick finger breached him, but the sound sounded almost collected compared to his earlier words. He was relieved now, getting what he desperately needed. The Master took his time preparing him, adding more oil until the insides of the Doctor's thighs were slippery and glistening and he rocked back against the Master's fingers as far as the cuffs would allow, whimpering helplessly.

The sight before him fascinated the Master: that beaten, quivering body, wet skin, soft skin, bloodied skin. Taut muscles and bony limbs. Sweat-matted hair, greying in places, clinging to the back of his neck. This weak living flesh spread out on the table where he had been assembled, among the wires and screws, the metal and plastic. Surrounded by machinery, and soon entered by it as well. He pushed in his cock like a painter completing a masterwork, but there the contemplation ended.

He stayed inside the Doctor, rocking his hips erratically, and hastily pulled off his jacket and undershirt. The Master needed to be closer now, and heedless of the Doctor's sticky skin, he bent over the Doctor, wrapped his arms around the bony chest and draped himself against the Doctor's back. He reached above their heads for the keys to the cuffs, but beneath him the Doctor's every defense was crumbling, and his mind pulled the Master's in like a collapsing star. Electric shivers ran through their bodies as the Master thrust. Around them and inside them, all boundaries melted down, until there was no ship, no table, no cuffs, no key, no blood, no circuits, no prison, no freedom, just them: one and one and one, union of mind and metal and flesh, man and ghost and machine.

 

*

Afterwards the Master brought the Doctor back to his room. He carried him over the threshold like a naked, bruised and beaten bride, and since his feet would not have carried him, the Doctor didn't protest. As soon as he lay on the bed he fell into a deep sleep while his body took care of the damage.

When he woke again after long hours, the Master was curled up on the bed next to him, not switched off but truly asleep. Although he didn't need to, he was breathing softly out of habit. Confident that the Master wouldn't wake up anytime soon, the Doctor went to get himself cleaned up. The dried blood washed off his back in the shower, leaving behind only healed and unmarred skin.

He towelled his hair, and sat cross-legged on the bed. If he re-examined the things he had said under duress the day before, the Doctor found that they still held true. He knew that this sleeping, trustful man had committed horrible crimes and he could not bring himself to hate the Master for it. Anger and betrayal were the worst he'd ever felt, and even these lay far in the past. Right now he felt simply happy and content.

A stray drop of water fell onto the Master's shoulder, and made him stir, but before he woke completely, the Doctor nudged him onto his back and framed the Master's face with his hands, prying open his mind. It was the psychic equivalent of an artless, sloppy kiss, and then a slow morning fuck, and the Master responded with fluttering lashes and disordered, delighted thoughts, and squirmed on the bed like a ticklish man before going quite still, exhaling his climax in a small sigh.

The Doctor kissed him and then grinned down at his now fully conscious friend. "I really should have tied your hands to the headboard before doing that. Just so we'd be even."

"Next time?" the Master suggested with a glint in his eyes.

The glint never fully left the Master's gaze, which seemed to follow the Doctor in every waking moment. He felt it burning on him all the time, and sometimes turned around and met it just to feel that incredible, breathtaking thrill. Whatever they did, preparing food, resting, testing their new freedom to act and speak exactly like they wanted to each other, there was an undercurrent of silence and intensity, as if they had taken each other by the hand and never let go.

Days passed like this, and the Doctor forgot entirely about wild adventure, or his imprisonment, about the phone silently waiting in the console room.

*

The first time the phone rang, they were lying in bed and in the middle of an argument. It was perfectly banal, and they both enjoyed it far too much to stop.

It had begun with the Doctor asking, polite to the point of being rude, "Could you turn off the lights, please?"

"As you can see," the Master had replied, without lifting his eyes from his novel, "I'm in the middle of reading something."

"There's absolutely no need for you to read. If you wanted to read that novel, you could just download it from the TARDIS computer."

"And have it dumped into my head in one big ungainly heap? I didn't know you were such a philistine, Doctor. And besides, there's no need for you to sleep, either. When did you become such a lazybones, Doctor? I didn't sleep this much when I was turning into a big cat."

"I don't know, it could have something to do with someone wearing me out all day long!"

"Oh, now – " the phone rang. It could be heard everywhere in the TARDIS. They froze for a moment, then the Master put down the book and gave the Doctor a look. They were both shocked and excited, and the best way to keep from panicking was to continue the pointless argument.

"The phone is ringing."

Grateful for the Master's continued obnoxiousness, the Doctor snapped, "I can hear that!"

"Well, I would answer it if I were you. That sound is quite grating."

"You built it that way!"

It stopped ringing. They both listened nervously. The Doctor sent a shifty look into the Master's direction. "Maybe it is time to build an answering machine..."


End file.
